Heart of the Forest
by Rainbow Volcano
Summary: Deep in the Fugue Forest, there are rumors of a nasty and mysterious witch. A farmer, curious and heedless of such warnings, barrels into the forest looking for such a witch. The farmer learns more than they bargained for, and soon cannot help falling hopelessly in love with the temperamental and fiery witch princess.


**Rainbow's Thought Volcano**: Back at it again with that Harvest Moon fluff. Catch me at the end for more notes

* * *

There's a witch who lives in the woods.

Her cottage is in the center of the Fugue Forest, the part where the forest slowly starts to become the swamp. The forest is dark, ominous, and the swamp is even darker. Trees and rocks and mushrooms speckle the forest floor, spreading into the swamp, though those aren't the bits that scare everyone away. It's the dark crow calls that stretch into the distance, clearing clean through your bones. It's the shadows that scarf down the light fragments, extending over your skin and leaving trails of icy chills. It's the horrifying truth that the forest has lived far longer than you, and will be here long after your kind has died.

It's in the heart of this forest that the witch has made her home. She has a wooden footbridge that extends past a swampy river that she crosses every morning when she gathers ingredients. She scoops up tufts of cotton seeds and elderberry bushlings, nestling them into her basket next to the thyme and cinnamon and baby bellas. These are for her meals, not for potions, though sometimes she uses them to change the color or scent. No, to gather the potion ingredients, she traverses into the dark swamp, the part thick with mist and bleeding with soggy marshes. Supposedly she has a little boat that she uses to cross, or perhaps she flies with her broom, but she always returns with horrific creatures, more human than plant, tucked cutely into her little basket.

She's made friends with all of the animals that live there, the finches and the ferrets and the lazy turtles. And the raccoons. She's always getting into arguments with them, about them swiping ingredients she needs for her potions and her spells. But they don't stop, because her yelling is just attention to the raccoons, and they love her too much to stop. Sometimes she feeds them her leftover ingredients, or gives them samples of her meals, scraping oozing fleshbits from her cutting board into their open jaws.

None of these are the reason everyone avoids the witch, however. The truth is far, far more sinister. It is a truth I discovered myself one month ago, after getting lost in the woods and stumbling upon a carmine frog that guided me to her house. This frog, as I discovered quickly, was the witch herself, having drank a potion that went awry. She asked for a drop of my blood to make the antidote, and I had already scraped my knee earlier, so I offered her some of that.

When she returned to human again, I learned the sinister truth about the witch.

Her personality was _horrible._

She was beautiful on the outside, naturally, all witches are. Younger than I'd thought, she looked to be just a bit older than my age. It surely couldn't have been the case, she was at least as old as the forest, likely older. Yet her skin was soft and her mannerisms spritely. Her long hair shone silver, wispy and styled like the misting swamp clouds. She wore a black conical hat, typical perhaps, or more for show, or perhaps it was merely stylish when she first picked it out, which must have been millennia ago.

But her face was always contorted into a self-important pout, scrunched up and squeezed like a sour lemon. She barked orders and shouted profanities stiff enough to make a sailor blush. She walked with her hands planted at her hips, and her nose straight in the air. She was arrogant and hotheaded and aggressive and narcissistic.

Which is perhaps why I came back the next day.

She'd kicked me out rather quickly after I'd helped her, with a shout about how I was distracting her from her work. So I went home, cleaned myself up, and went back to the forest in the morning. Along the way I found a strange purple mushroom, one that seemed to glitter in the shade, so I plucked it and stored it in my knapsack. Perhaps the witch wouldn't sent me out if I was helping.

I knocked at her door, but no reply, so I hesitantly turned the knob to find it unlocked, and stepped inside. She was in her kitchen, mulling over a large cauldron with purple liquid bubbling inside. I approached her, and after a session of her screaming, I produced the mushroom from my knapsack.

And she gasped.

This was the first time I noticed her eyes. A bizarre color, one that I wasn't quite sure truly existed. It sort of resembled a sunset, or perhaps the ocean's reflection of a sunset sky, but they were too glossy for that comparison to be accurate. Amber-esque, if I _had_ to give it a word, but then she turned her head and the color shifted. The bright yellow turned more towards a burgundy, and then when she snatched the mushroom from my hands, they shifted once more to a curdling blood red. Somewhere in there, then, that area between red and yellow and purple. Perhaps all of them at once.

She added the mushroom to the cauldron, whole, not chopping or washing it beforehand. It landed with a satisfying _plunk_, and she stared at the concoction for a while. Then, she looked up at me. Her features had smoothed from lemony to soft, sheepish.

"Thank you," she said, simply.

And that was the moment I fell.

I tried to form words after that, but my lips never quite work. They were a little too rubbery, my throat a little too dry, my lungs a little too empty, everything just a little too captivated to work.

I haven't been able to say a word to her since she was a frog, and now, nearly a month later, I've finally found the resolve to speak to her. Although, I told myself the same thing yesterday, and all I managed was a strangled sort of chuckle. It made her laugh, and the sound was so light and fluttering like butterfly wings that I lost everything.

But I've heard her laugh now. I've seen her smile. Her surprise weapons will no longer be a surprise, and I'll finally be able to say a word to her. Perhaps more than one, though I won't get ahead of myself.

_Hello._ That's what I'm going to tell her. Right as I enter her house, the moment I turn the knob and just before she catches my eyes in hers. _Hello._

I practice as I scoop up a specimen of her favorite purple mushroom, Fugue Mushroom, they're called. "Hello," I say to it, natural, composed, beautiful.

I say it to the finches that land briefly on my shoulders. "Hello." I say it to the turtles as they watch me cross the footbridge. "Hello". I say it to the ferrets as they sniff at my boots, excited by my smells that come from outside of the forest. "Hello." I say it to those ridiculous raccoons, who've started trying to swipe things from my rucksack.

I whisper it to myself just as I place my hand on her doorknob. _Hello_. Two syllables. I've practiced, I know how to do this.

The word forms in my mouth as I open the door, and it's half out. "Hel-"

But then her eyes catch mine, and the word dies.

Her eyes are like spiderwebs, and her gaze like the spider, and the missing 'lo' from my word a helpless, helpless fly. It is gone, she has devoured it with one look of her shifting eyes.

She's in the foyer, the door just barely missing her nose as I swung it open. Her eyes are so close, and I wish I could tell her how beautiful they are. But I have turned into the fly, trapped in her web, under her spell, and no matter how I wriggle and writhe I am at her mercy.

Just the way she likes it, I think.

She stares at me, expectant, perhaps. I have come every day bearing her favorite Fugue Mushroom. She is an ancient being, as old as the earth, and I am a mortal with a ridiculous amount of stupidity and a ridiculous lack of shame. It is no wonder she chastises me every day, scolds me for my idiocy, for interrupting her, for distracting her. But still every day I come, and every day that I see her eyes is a good day.

"Why have you come here?" she asks.

I cannot form the words.

I shrug, hoping that it's enough of an answer. She glares at me.

"Is that it, then? You come all the way here to the forest every single day—venturing straight to the center, braving the terrors, ignoring the rumors—on a _whim_!?"

I shake my head, frowning. Not a whim. No one would do this on a whim. Although, it certainly felt like a whim at first. Curiosity. But now it is so much more.

"What, then? Answer me!"

I cannot, I cannot form any words. I formed half of a word, and I had to practice it for nearly 6 hours to still get it wrong. How could I possibly say words that I have not practiced? The process of getting these thoughts from my head into my lips is astronomically impossible. There's a graveyard in my throat where a thousand words have died, and I am no necromancer.

I must look distressed, because she softens, just a little. "If you can't tell me, then show me."

I blink at her, owlishly. Since when did she become _kind_?

Her ears are dusted carmine, just like the frog skin, and I wonder suddenly if she is as nervous as I am. _Nervous_. A good word. I wish I knew how to say it.

Instead, I reach into my knapsack and produce the Fugue Mushroom.

It is her turn to blink owlishly, then she bursts out into laughter.

This laugh is not like her other one, so it still comes as a surprise. It's raucous and deep, filling the whole forest. It staves off the horrible creatures growing in the shade, pushes back the creeping fog, settles the suffering crow calls.

_This_ is the power she possesses. Perhaps only a fraction of it. She controls the forest, she _is_ the forest, it beats and breathes along with her. In this laughter I see it, millennia ago, a young witchling building a house and planting a seed, and the forest growing along with her. The forest grew around her house, the life breathed into it by her very lungs.

I have come every day into the heart of the forest, _her_ heart, and she has let me. Every time, the door has been unlocked and she has let me walk right in.

Her laughter settles, leaving a smile in its wake. Her smile sucks the air straight from my lungs. It is a good thing I'd already given up on trying to form words.

"You are stupid even for a human," she says, and I cannot help but nod. She smirks at that, shaking her head. "And you have no shame." I agree, again, because she's right and could not be wrong.

She gives me a strange sort of sideways glance, as if seeing me for the first time. Perhaps she is, in a way. In a new light. Her shifting eyes study me, scrutinizing every one of my angles and curves with a different color. I don't know what she's looking for. I don't know what she's finding. A reason to push me out? A reason to let me in? I am not a smart human, she is correct. No smart being would rush through the forest every single day, hours upon hours desperately trying to navigate the shifting trees just to give a mushroom to a witch.

"But you _are _tenacious, I'll give you that much."

I feel a sudden, horrid heat creep up into me. I am always warm with the witch, even though the swamp and the forests are cold. This warmth strangles my throat and constricts my cheeks. I am once again thankful for already haven given up words.

She smiles at me in a crooked sort of way as she takes my hand. "Tenacious and stupid. What a terrible combination for a human. A terrible way to stay alive."

I cannot think of her words because she is still holding my hand. Her hands are so much softer than mine, as soft as fine soil, as if her hands were made of the earth itself. Her eyes have settled into softness, gentility, and though the color cannot sit still, her expression is rooted in _fond_.

She places her other hand on my cheek, stilling it, stalling it, and my very thoughts become difficult to form.

"You don't come here on a whim, do you? You ridiculous, tenacious, stupid human." Her words have no bite as she glides her thumb up and down my cheek.

Her heart is surrounded by hostile swamps and vicious forests, yet here she is, letting me stand inside of it, telling me that she wants me here. How can I tell her the same? I cannot. I don't have words. I've barely ever had them, and now, when they are the most important, they have all abandoned me. There's a chasm between what I want to say and actually saying it, and all of my words are falling into it.

_If you can't tell me, then show me._

So I kiss her.

She yelps for a moment, I think she has half a mind to slap me. But I am nothing if not tenacious and stupid, and she knew that already, so this truly shouldn't come as a surprise. She settles into the kiss, sinks into it, melting the two of us together.

This is so much better than trying to form words.

When she finally pulls away, her eyes are soft and glowing somewhere between burgundy and gold. Her cheeks are carmine, and for a moment, I see the center of the forest.

Then she scrunched up her face into a sour lemon. Grapefruit, perhaps, with all the carmine? "What is wrong with you?"

I smile.

"Do you just go around town, kissing every girl you see?"

I shake my head, and reach for her hands. I hold them, wishing I could prove to her how special she is. Wondering if just being here is enough.

She sighs, and pouts as she looks at the floor, away from me. "Even after all of this, you still can't say anything to me, huh?" I blink at her. Is she disappointed? "I know you don't talk all that much, but I wanted you to talk to me. Is that so bad? I want to hear your voice. I've heard the voices of many humans, but not you. I thought that perhaps, well, if I'd berated you unfairly enough, you would surely get angry back at me and shout."

Suddenly that fondness is back on her face. "But you never did."

She _wants_ to hear my words. But what can I say? Everything that I should say is far, far too heavy to throw across that chasm. _You're beautiful. I came because I wanted to see you. I miss you when I'm away. The forest was so hard to navigate, day after day, but I did it all for you. _

But there must be _something_ I can say. Surely there's something I can force out of my mouth. I am not a necromancer, but perhaps a word in my graveyard hasn't quite died yet. Will it make her eyes light up, like when she sees a Fugue Mushroom? Will it quiet the harsh forests, settle the fog, make her smile?

"So that's it, then?" she asks, petulant as a child. "You're just going to kiss me and say nothing afterwards?"

There must be something. _Anything_.

"Hello."

I consider death. But she laughs, light and fluttering like butterfly wings.

* * *

From that day on, I began to say a few more words to her. Sometimes I still couldn't quite get them out, but on those days she just kissed me and I didn't mind being half-mute. I stayed much, much longer at her house, long into the nights. Often she told me not to bother leaving, and just as often she walked me back to the farm, leaving her fortress with her hand in mine.

Years went by, and through those years I practiced a specific phrase every morning and every night. I practiced it with the ferrets and the turtles and the birds. I practiced it with the raccoons as they tittered and laughed with excitement. I practiced it when gathering Fugue Mushroom and thyme and elderberries for my witch, I practiced it when the winds were low so the words couldn't run away.

Finally, the right time comes, and I am certain, prepared, composed.

Up until the moment I catch her eyes.

She stares at me, and laughs her butterfly wing laugh, and answers the question I didn't ask.

"Yes," she promises. My heart swells. She knows. She _knows. _

She gives me a sideways look again, catching my eyes up in her shifting ones. Today they are a sort of yellow like sunflowers and desert sand, but also red like maple leaves and rowan berries. "I would have asked you, you know. But I couldn't be certain you would give me an answer." Carmine dusts her cheeks.

An answer. _Yes_, of course, and I want to say it right now.

"Will you marry me?" I blurt instead.

She laughs and laughs and kisses me.

There's a witch who lives in these woods, in the heart of the forest. And now, I live with her, and love her more every single day.

* * *

**Rainbow's Thought Volcano**: Man, it's been _years _since I've written for Harvest Moon. I recently got back into Animal Parade and finally married my childhood sweetheart and started a new game+. Originally I thought about marrying the Harvest Goddess, but then I found out she doesn't live with you, so I said screw that and married the witch princess instead.

I purposefully wanted the narrator to be androgynous, so they are whatever gender you want them to be! I also took some creative liberties surrounding the player character's selective muteness, and tried to work it into their characterization. I shifted a few things around about the witch's hair, but her eyes are really confusing to me! They're red in the official art, yellow on her model, and purple on her tracker sprite. Which is it? This was my solution.

As always, thank you for reading! Leave me likes and comments to validate me, and also because I love seeing this community grow!


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